BURNS, James. Jam: Projekte der Arthropoden zur Gestalung der Zukunft.

(Cologne): Phaidon-Verlags GMBH, 1971. First edition. Softcover. 29.5 × 21 cm. 167 pages. An important and now scarce survey of the radical architectural experiments emerging internationally in the 1960s and early 1970s. Burns brings together projects by a remarkable range of avant-garde architects, artists and collectives, including Cedric Price, Haus-Rucker Co., God & Co. / François Dallegret, Missing Link Productions, 9999, Superstudio, Coop Himmelblau, Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer, Eventstructures Research Group, Alessandro Carlini, Experiments in Art and Technology, Ant Farm, Pulsa, Archizoom, Experiments in Environment, John M. Johanson and Onyx. Rather than treating architecture as a fixed discipline, JAM presents these groups as “Arthropods”: experimental organisms occupying an uncertain territory between architecture, technology, art and popular culture. The projects range from mobile and inflatable structures to speculative environments, cybernetic systems and visionary proposals for new forms of habitation. Of particular importance is the inclusion of Superstudio, whose work occupies a substantial section of the volume. One of the earliest comprehensive surveys of the international radical-architecture movement. Illustrated throughout with drawings, photographs and visionary photomontages. A very good copy in printed wrappers.